Events

Take a minute to check out some of the photos from last night’s event here:Photo Album
We hope you made it! We’re pretty sure you did, because Hope & Union was JAM PACKED with skaters, artists, moms, dads, kids, adults, lions, tigers and bears OH MY! This was a spectacular event and you all made it possible. A very special thanks to John, Jess, Liz and the rest of the Hope & Union crew. You helped make Skate and Create 2012 a beautiful occasion. Our volunteers worked tirelessly to put together this event. The artists outdid themselves with some innovative uses of skateboards as paintings, sculptures, chandeliers, room dividers, coffee tables, chairs, and more. Who would have thought a skateboard can become so many different forms of art? A tool used for performance art was transformed by over 100 artists into a piece of fine art. POUR IT NOW thanks the many donors who bid on these wonderful works of art. We raised more than half of our total fundraising goal – approximately $3200! The students of CCSMS are so close to skatboarding in PE class next year!

Local and national artists have created exceptional works from skateboards in the form of paintings, sculptures, installations, furniture and more. The original pieces will be sold at auction to raise funds for the Skate Pass program for the Charleston Charter School for Math & Science. The goal amount of $5000 will cover the costs of the curriculum, skateboards and safety equipment necessary for a skateboarding PE class of up to 30 kids. Help us make CCSMS the first school in South Carolina to teach skateboarding in PE class!

Jason Filipow

Admission is free and the event will feature live music by Indiana Ryan, free hors d’oeurvres, free beer and wine.

Part sport, part lifestyle, part art, Skateboarding fosters much more than athletic ability. In South Carolina alone skateboarding has produced School Teachers, Business Owners, Photographers, Film and Video Producers and Editors, Graphic Designers, and Fine Artists. Skateboarders pay close attention to form, style, and the overall aesthetic as they try tirelessly to perfect their abilities. Skateboarding is a goal-oriented activity, rewarding only those willing to put in hours of work. The feeling of landing a trick after thousands of tries is one of pure elation, though most skateboarders never let it show. The connection one forms with a skateboard becomes near inseparable for many, becoming a center through which the rest of one’s life flows.

Sculpture by Haroshi using old skateboards.

Charleston bred, internationally acclaimed artist, Kevin Earl Taylor attributes his roots in art as well as his artistic inspiration to skateboarding. Taylor writes, “our creative life was nurtured through skateboarding. Little did we know, but the act of improvising hours of fun from society’s detritus would train our minds to explore the potentiality of our surroundings. Skateboarding was a self-expressive mode, in which we developed individualities and preferences. Through it and the surrounding atmosphere of counter culture, we learned the mechanics of introspection. It was something we did together, but by ourselves. We all had our distinctive styles then, just as we do now. I remember building a ramp using found scraps of wood. For a couple of hours, we’d scoured the ground at the junkyard on Sullivan’s Island, each of us collecting an artillery of rusty, bent and nearly broken nails. With half of a broken brick, we took those and hammered them back into shape. We had learned how to design, conceptualize and construct what we saw in our heads. In 1987, we called them ramps, but now we know, they were indeed our earliest original works.”

Skate and Create 2012 will raise funds to purchase Skate Pass – skateboard PE curriculum and equipment for The Charleston Charter School for Math & Science. This will be the first school in South Carolina to teach skateboarding in PE. Skateboarding distance from the Meeting Street location of the future Charleston County Skateboard park, the Charleston Charter School for Math and Science will have a perfect facility for advanced students to put their lessons to use.

POUR IT NOW, a 501c3 non-profit skateboard advocacy group, is partnering with local and international artists, auctioning donated works of art created using skateboards as media to meet their fundraising goal of five thousand dollars. The funds will be used to pay for the Skate Pass curriculum and equipment, which includes skateboards, pads and helmets for classes of up to thirty students.

The art opening and auction will take place at the end of March, artists of all types are encouraged to participate by picking up a skateboard free of charge from a selection at Continuum Skateshop on Spring street and creating a work of art for the auction. Download the form and fill it out before turning in your artwork at Continuum skateboard shop. All donated art items are due by March 1, 2012. The show date, time and location will be announced on pouritnow.com, Facebook and Twitter.

If you want to be a part of Skate and Create 2012 please submit work by March 1, 2012. We need artists to create art using a skateboard. It can be an old or new board. You can make a painting a sculpture, or anything you deem to be art. If you have a board to use as your media or canvas, then get to work. Upload photos of your progress to POUR IT NOW’s facebook page or tag #sk8ncre8 on Instagram or Twitter. If you need a board, then head down to Continuum Skate shop (49 Spring Street, Charleston, SC) and pick up a board. They have many options available, but if you have one already it would be a huge help. Once you finish your work, make it ready to hang on the wall and drop it off at Continuum SkateShop.

Art created from the skateboards will be auctioned in Charleston in late March (details to come). Proceeds will allow POUR IT NOW to donate Skate Pass to the Charleston Charter School for Math & Science. Using Skate Pass will allow CCSMS to teach Skateboarding in PE class. Our fundraising goal is $5000.

I was digging through some pictures from the Party at the Blue Tile Lounge (Bob and Jon’s house) in Charleston, South Carolina. All proceeds from the event went directly to Pour It Now and the upcoming DIY build @ Ackerman skatepark!!! Check em out:

Here we go again! You all saw the video from last year’s Skate & Create reception. This year promises to be another banger. Don’t get left out. Bring your friends and family, come grab some refreshments, grab a beer from the bar, check the artwork, and chill with friends. We will be shooting another video so make sure you look fresh to deff.

Latest News

http://www.abcnews4.com/story/18122664/proposal-sets-new-rules-for-skateboarders
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — Downtown Charleston skateboarders could soon be taking a u-turn. That is if a new proposal by City of Charleston councilman Mike Seekings...

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-city-of-charleston-sc-do-not-ban-skateboarding
Please help us stop the proposed ban on skateboarding in downtown Charleston. Sign the petition in the above link. Below are links to several articles about the issue:
Charleston...

by Mark Davenport, WCSC
http://www.live5news.com/story/17379334/downtown-charleston-skate-part-slowly-grinding-ahead
A skate park in downtown Charleston is slowly grinding ahead with plans to build. Skaters are one meeting away from finding out whether...